The UK Armed Forces has three categories of medical deployability (also known as medical grading):

• Medically Fully Deployable (MFD):
  • Personnel medically fit for duty with no employment limitations.
• Medically Limited Deployable (MLD):
  • Personnel medically fit for duty with minor employment limitations.
  • MLD personnel may have a medical condition or functional limitation that prevents the meeting of all MFD requirements.
• Medically Not Deployable (MND):
  • Personnel medically fit for duty with major employment limitations.
  • MND personnel are not fir to deploy on operations but may be deployable on UK-based exercises and should be able to work effectively for at least 32.5 hours per week.

Service personnel with medical conditions or fitness issues which affect their ability to perform their duties are:

• Assessed in primary care; or
• Referred to a medical board for a medical examination and review of their medical grading.

Personnel may be downgraded to allow for treatment and rehabilitation.

Medically downgraded personnel are those personnel who have been assessed by one of the two methods above, and subsequently awarded a medical deployability standard (MDS) of either MLD or MND. The MDS can be awarded on a temporary or permanent basis.

The MDS is recorded on two databases:

• The Joint Personnel Administration (JPA): and
• The Defence Medical Information Capability Programme (DMICP) which has a centralised data warehouse of coded information.